Lunar New Year

This was what we had for our hot pot dinner:
1) broth made from pork broth boiled and simmered for hours, this was later flavored with Sate sauce
2) spicy broth was from #1, but with some Chiu Chow spices

and the dippers:
1) sliced rib eye (shabu shabu beef)
2) vegetables - Sweet pea & Baby bokchoy
3) shrimp

4) shrimp balls
5) cuttlefish balls
6) fish cake - balls and sheets
7) kani - crab sticks
8) Enoki mushrooms
9) sweet corn

We also had 2 kinds of noodles - sotanghon and soba.


... and this is us, taken just before we dug in.

Times like these make me realize how much I miss working in an office setting. I remember and see & talk to real people. I miss those days when we would have activities such as those offered by TOOBEEZ Teambuilding. Those were fun times.

Baptismal in NH

We found ourselves trekking (drama!) to the far north east region of America last weekend to witness the baptism of a friend & officemate's son. It was a 4 and a half hour trip each way but we were looking forward to it because we get to be with our friends again, as I've said to another friend earlier, we all live so far away from each other now, and these occasions come so far and few in between so we look forward to them so much.

Baby was baptized in a quaint, small town (?) church in NH and I only wish that we could've taken more pictures of the grounds. A photographer friend took more pictures so I'll just make do with his as mine turned out to be dark.

The inside of the church was beautiful too.

The ceremony was solemn and very beautiful. The Deacon did a great job of including us all in the ceremony and asked us all to bless the baby as he was baptized. Nakakatuwa. And, btw, the parents were able to talk the church into giving a special ceremony on a Saturday so theirs was the only baby being baptized that day.

And before I end this post, I'll take the opportunity to do a little plugging to my readers who might be interested in some of my friends' services and products:

The cake was made by our friend, keykgirl. [website to follow]

My photo doesn't do the cake justice and I hope to find a better shot somewhere. If you're on the lookout for some yummy & pretty cakes somewhere in the MA/NH areas, drop me a line :)

Christmas Party 2007

We held our Christmas party at the Baculio's last weekend, everyone had loads of fun - most especially the kids who got bag loads of presents.

We had a white elephant gift exchange (also called the Yankee swap), we went home with a Joby GorillaPod from Aris. We're looking forward to using this. Hubby and I actually have a small tripod which we bring with us when we travel. The thing is, we've always had to rely on trash cans or tables whenever we want to snap a photograph of us. With this, we won't have to.

Other items that were exchanged included a wet/dry cordless vacuum cleaner, a touchscreen speaker phone, bluetooth headsets, board games, scented oil warmer, Homedics home massager, set of Pyrex bakeware, Rubbermaid containers.

Last but not the least, friends G & A announced that they are infanticipating, just another one of the blessings that we are thankful for this year. Kelan kaya kami ? :)

<-- Hubby & me, pic taken by Jacob (we're friends now, yey!)